We can’t thank Jamie enough for taking time out of her busy schedule to create these lessons for us. So please take a moment of your time to drop her a line and say thanks, too!

But since July 1 is also Canada Day, we were fortunate enough to get a nice mini-piece from Guitar Noise’s creator / owner Paul Hackett. It’s certainly worth a second look as we celebrate Canada Day here in 2009:

Canada Rocks

By Paul Hackett

July 1 is Canada Day, Canada’s national holiday. It celebrates the creation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. It is a day generally marked by patriotic celebrations featuring fireworks and entertainment with a Canadian theme. Today being July 1 has got me thinking about some of the more notable rock bands to come out of Canada throughout the years.

Since the emergence of Canada’s first major pop star, Paul Anka in the 1950s, many types of Canadian music have flourished, reflecting the diverse tastes of Canadians. Distinctly Canadian styles of music include French-Canadian music, Maritime music, Native American and Inuit music as well as homegrown folk and country. Some of the more notable singer/songwriters from Canada include Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Bruce Cockburn.

In celebration of Canada Day I want to share my picks for some of the more enduring Canadian rock acts. Rock music in Canada owes a great debt of gratitude to The Guess Who, whose best-known songs (“American Woman”, “These Eyes”, “No Sugar Tonight”, etc.) are among Canada’s most enduring classic rock anthems. Initially the band wanted radio stations and record buyers to believe they were a British Merseybeat band in disguise. So when they released their debut album, it didn’t bear their own name — instead, it was labeled “Guess Who?” The ruse worked, and within a few years The Guess Who were one of Canada’s biggest musical names.

In 1970, the Canadian government introduced Canadian content regulations, requiring radio stations to devote 30 per cent of their musical selections to Canadian content. The most immediate effect of these new regulations was the sudden rise to fame of Anne Murray, whose 1970 “Snowbird” was a multi-million selling record. The rest of the decade proved to be a golden age for Canadian music with the emergence of internationally renowned acts such as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Rush, Bruce Cockburn, April Wine and Neil Young. Another of this period’s most influential and popular rock bands, Heart, resulted from the collaboration of two sisters from Seattle with a supporting band from Vancouver.

The 1980s produced many mainstream pop-rockers such as Bryan Adams, Tom Cochrane, Platinum Blonde, Honeymoon Suite, Helix, and Corey Hart. This era also produced the country cowpunk of k.d. Lang, who eventually become one of pop music’s biggest names. The late 1980s saw even more popular acts such as Alannah Myles and Jeff Healey (the blind blues guitarist extraordinaire who appeared the film Roadhouse). Alternative rock also emerged as an influential genre, with artists such as 54-40, Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Cowboy Junkies, The Tea Party, and Our Lady Peace all gaining widespread attention during this time.

An unassuming demo tape by the Barenaked Ladies became the hottest item in Canadian record stores in the fall of 1991. Alanis Morissette, who began as a dance-pop artist before transforming into an alternative rocker in 1995, launched an era in which Canadian women ruled the pop charts worldwide. In the late 1990s, Morissette, Shania Twain, Céline Dion and Sarah McLachlan were arguably the four most popular and influential recording artists in the world during this decade.

With such diversity in styles, Canadian rock and pop music has a real staying power. And with a new album by Paul Anka in stores now, there seems to be no end in sight. Hopefully you’ll find some of this music enjoyable, and have a happy Canada Day, eh!

The sound file works through several ideas for getting creative and improvising a bit, on just three chords. All those chords are formed on our foundational one-finger shape.

Here are the ideas we’ll work through:

Instead of playing the chords in a certain order each time, change the order. For example, start out with the one-finger shape on frets 2, 7 and 9. Maybe pluck each of those chords twice. Once you can play that smoothly, change the order: play frets 9, 7 and 2. etc.

The next idea is lots of fun, and starts to get us into some melodic stuff. Play on frets 2, 7 and 9 as before, but focus your attention on your right hand and ask “what could I be playing besides plucking all three strings at once?” Listen to the sound file for examples of playing around here.

Next idea: approach chords. That’s a single term, like “ApproachChords.” And the underlying idea is, if you know your ultimate target is playing the one-finger chord on fret 7, try playing on fret 5 or 6 first, and then sliding into fret 7.

Next, we change the tempo, a very natural thing to do. You just slow down or speed up based on your preference and feeling.

Change from a dance-like rhythm or an “Oom-pah-pah,” vibe to a “one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four” thing. And this opens up a big area to play around in, because you can get into all kinds of cool rhythms. One approach to discovering interesting rhythms is realizing that you’re already using them all the time in speech. Listen to the rhythm of in interesting sentence and convert it to “One, ta, two, ta,” etc. or some other syllable that works for you. Then, pick up your guitar and “speak” those rhythmic syllables onto it.

The overriding idea that includes these other ideas is “Be creative. Have fun. Avoid monotony and keep that guitar in your hands.”

Here’s the sound file for this lesson. Go to this address and RIGHT-click on the sound file link. Do not left-click.

Send your comments to dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com. Remove the no spam bit.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2009 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - January 15, 2008 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

While these lessons have been shorter in length than many of our other song lessons and guitar columns, they have been full of information on how to go about that seemingly impossible task of creating a solo. Plus, each lesson not only has MP3 files demonstrating the ideas covered in that particular article, they all include a “play along” backing track that allows you to create your own solo based on what you hopefully learned.

We’re currently up to Part 8 in this series, but if you’re interested in seeing where it all began, here are the first two, originally posted in the last half of June, 2008: Choosing Colors and One Note at a Time.

For instance, going back just three years, to June 1, 2006, you would have found these two new lessons at Guitar Noise:

Irish Flatpicking Guitar - “The Humours of Tulla”
by Doug Sparling

Doug takes a break from finger-style guitar to bring us a few lessons in flatpicking. In addition to a terrific arrangement of a Celtic reel, you’ll learn a little more about timing and ornamentation, specifically the “staccato triplet.”

Friend of the Devil
by David Hodge

Sometimes the simplest things, such as a descending scale line, make all the difference between a song that is just strummed chords and one that sounds like you put a little work into it. Here’s an easy and very recognizable arrangement of this classic tune from the Grateful Dead.

Obviously, I’ve been into this whole descending bass lines for quite some time! The new lesson on Lay Lady Lay is just the latest example of how much time we’ve spent using this technique in our song lessons. Pretty wild, eh?

I wonder what year we’ll visit next time?

Reprinted from Volume 3 #91 of the newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Our latest Guitar Noise Podcast picks up right where GN Podcast #26 left off. Having gotten the basics of this song under our belts, it’s time to explore what to do when (notice I didn’t say “if”) we get around to playing with another guitarist. So here we start out with a simple arrangement for two guitars.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Needless to say, we were thrilled when Jamie offered to do some video lessons based on our recent Guitar Noise Song Arrangement Lesson of George Harrision’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which is done in a combination of chord melody and fingerstyle playing. 

In her first video lesson on this song, which you can find here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P76DWglLsPE, Jamie introduces some of the elements and techniques she teaches at Guitar Principles, and they are certainly helpful when playing this piece. 

You can find the tablature here: Download gif (Right-click and “Save as”) and you can also find more helpful advice on this arrangement right from the source While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Performance Notes.

Paul and I hope that you enjoy this video and we’d like to especially thank Jamie for taking time out from her busy schedule to make this for the readers of Guitar Noise. 

Peace

For this Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll work on getting the basics down, plus have a little fun with the bass line. Next time out, we’ll add the challenge of playing along with a second guitarist.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

In our latest Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll finish our look at “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” by looking at a slightly more complicated strumming pattern as well as learning about a new voicing of the G7 chord. This particular use of the G7 will be turning up again in the upcoming Guitar Noise Intermediate Songs lesson on “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Here’s a brief excerpt:

As a guitar teacher, would you say that you’re making a significant contribution to your students’ playing? 

My contributions aren’t so much contributions as they are me just being me. I run into more people than I care to say who will tell me, “Oh yeah, I used to play an instrument. I used to make music.” And that, to me, is possibly the saddest thing one could ever hear. So, as a guitar teacher my goal isn’t even to turn someone into a professional guitarist. I simply hope that I can give my students a gift that will be with them throughout their lives, a gift that they in turn can share with others. I will give them what tools I can to achieve their goals, but ultimately it’s all about the contribution they are going to make to the world. I’m just a very small part of that. 

Read the complete interview on Jemsite here: The Guitar Hero Series: David Hodge

And congratulations to David for receiving recognition for being a Guitar Hero. Indeed you are. We look forward to many more great things from you. Again.

In our latest Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll continue to explore how to sing and play at the same time, using “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” as our example.

This time out, we’ll look at a new strumming pattern and the begin to add fills, working with a cool D to G bass run very much in the style of the Beatles’ “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.” And it’s a lot easier to play than it sounds. No lie.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Our latest series of additions includes links to our favorite social networking sites. Most of these sites are probably here to stay. They also do a better job than we do of following the changing tides of technology. Best of all, they will help put you in touch with one another. This can only be a good thing as you all share the common goal of becoming better guitar players.

Here is a quick run down of the social networking sites we’re a part of:

Twitter - Sometimes you can’t see it, but there’s always a lot of activity going on behind the scenes at Guitar Noise. Some of you may wish to receive rapid updates on different devices and that’s where Twitter comes in. We’ve already been tweeting about some of the daily happenings at Guitar Noise for a few months now. Twitter updates can be a little annoying when they’re overdone, so if you follow us on Twitter it’s unlikely there’ll be more than one update a day - unless there is something big going on. You can follow us here. 

Facebook - Since Facebook is already the largest and most time-consuming social networking site, we thought we’d set up a fan page here. Regular members of our forums will like putting a face to some of their online friends. As time goes on we’ll continue adding new photos, posting news items and videos - and you can do the same. It will be updated regularly with links to our latest lessons and podcasts and even the latest issue of Guitar Noise News. Come on by and sign in as a fan!

Myspace - Everyday my inbox is bombarded with requests from bands asking me to listen to their music. All these bands have Myspace pages and the days of receiving a CD in the mail are most definitely nearly over. Head over to our Myspace profile and you can listen to some of our favorite bands, music we’ve reviewed and even music uploaded by Guitar Noise members. If you’re into that, check out the Guitar Noise Myspace page and start sharing your music.

RSS Feeds - We’ve been using RSS feeds for our lessons since last summer. By subscribing to these feeds, you won’t have to keep hitting refresh or visit the home page to see what’s new. Every time something new is posted you’ll be notified automatically. This can be done through most web browsers, it’s easy to set up and costs nothing to use. Find out more about how syndication works or subscribe to our feed.

Keep an eye out for any of the above icons on our site. From there you’ll be able to join us in different locations around the web. We hope to see you there. We also hope you’ll bring your brings too.

We’re giving away 3 copies of Len Collins’ Guitar Breakthrough. What is that, you ask? Guitar Breakthrough is a 2 DVD set of guitar lessons unlike anything else you have ever seen. We’ve already reviewed Guitar Breakthrough on Guitar Noise, with David Hodge calling it “a breath of fresh air.” We have 3 copies to give away to our readers. This contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. All you have to do is send an email to contest@guitarnoise.com and answer one simple question. The question is: “What is the name of the studio where the Guitar Breakthrough DVD was filmed?”

The best place to find the answer to that is over on the Guitar Breakthrough website. The deadline for entries is March 18, 2009. Good luck.

If you haven’t heard of Len Collins yet, he’s the brains behind First.stop.for.musicians, a new social networking event bringing together guitar players and students of all ages and levels, giving them a chance to meet in a relaxed environment and share their ideas about music. Best of all, this is a free project open to anyone. You can get the latest news on First.stop. for.musicians. on the Guitar Breakthrough site as well.

Update: Contest winners have been notifed. Congratulations to Dave, Steve and Tony.

Being romantic doesn’t have to be all bad. This year, to make things better, our friends at Amazon.com are giving away a free MP3 download of perhaps the sexiest song ever. There’s no obligation whatsoever, click here and download “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye for free. This offer expires at midnight on Valentine’s Day.

I’m not going to be shy about this. I know what I’m talking about when I say Marvin Gaye has some of the best music ever when it comes maintaining the right mood. It’s up to you to find someone and create that mood; but once all the participants are in place, a Marvin Gaye playlist will serve you well.

I know a lot of Guitar Noise regulars aren’t big on R&B and Soul. But if you’re ready to branch out, I personally recommend the Marvin albums What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On. From start to finish these albums get the job done. You also can’t go wrong with a Marvin Greatest Hits package either. And if you’re not sure about any of this, why not download the quintessential Valentine’s Day song Let’s Get In On for free?

In our latest Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll take a look at getting comfortable with strumming with an eye toward being able to sing and play at the same time. We start with a new song, the iconic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and we even have a cheat sheet for you:

We’ll spend most of this podcast getting good at a couple of strumming patterns so that we can tackle it in earnest next week.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

With many apologies for it taking so long, let me welcome you to the latest Guitar Noise Podcast,the second part of our look at the old Irish folksong, “The Star of the County Down.” Here we’ll make an arrangement for the last half of the verse and also do something fun with the chorus. When you’ve finished with this podcast, you’ll have a complete song for your repertoire.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

There were plenty of changes during the past year. We moved our lessons to a new content management system. This is already making our work easier. We also changed the look of our site yet again. On top of that we had to upgrade our server unexpectedly and things have been running pretty smoothly since.

Perhaps the most fun addition to Guitar Noise this past year is the Guitar Noise Podcast, hosted by none other than David Hodge. David is perhaps the nicest guitar teacher in the New England area. All his hard work and occasional perfectionism should encourage us all to do better at whatever it is we are doing. And enjoy doing it too!

Let’s end the year by looking back. Here’s a list of the our most popular lessons published in 2008:

1. Help! - The Beatles (June 8 )
2. Brain Damage / Eclipse - Pink Floyd (April 1)
3. Man on the Moon - R.E.M. (November 17)
4. As Tears Go By - The Rolling Stones (January 1)
5. How To Play Simple Chords On Keyboard And Guitar (July 17)
6. Choosing Colors - Turning Scales into Solos - Part 1  (June 23)
7. Silver Bells (December 1)
8. The First Noel (November 24)
9. One Note At A Time - Turning Scales into Solos - Part 2 (July 1)
10. Targeting a Mode - Turning Scales into Solos - Part 6 (December 15)

I want to wish you all a very happy and successful new year! I’m looking forward to a great 2009 and hope to continue seeing you all, wherever you are.

I’ll give a brief explanation of the shape, which is just as easy as the shape we’ve been playing on strings 2 through 4. Then, I’ll refer you to the video for this lesson, which I think may be clearer than written explanations.

The original shape has the first finger covering strings 2 through 4, on any fret. Now, we’re going to use the one finger to cover strings 1 to 3. Try this now: press the first finger of your left hand on strings 1 to 3, at fret 3. Here’s a graphic to help.

And, very similar to how we plucked the original chord, we’ll use our right hand fingers to pluck strings 1 through 3 instead of 2 through 4. Here’s a graphic of the right hand.

Once you get sound from this chord, compare the sound of the original chord and the new chord, by playing them one after the other. The particular thing you’re listening for is this: the original chord sounds kind of cheerful or upbeat. It’s called a _major_ chord. But the new chord we just learned sounds kind of somber. It’s called a _minor_ chord.

If you’re not picking up those cheerful/somber sensations yet, don’t worry. The more you play, the better your ear gets.

Now let’s look at the chord progression in action.

(This is playable in the free and reliable VideoLan player, available at VideoLan.org .)

By the way, it may reassure you to know that I have been trying out these exercises by pretending I’m left-handed, which involves fretting with my “wrong” hand. I never practice like this and have zero skill playing this way, but I am able to get decent sounds from the instructions in this lesson series.

But that’s no guarantee that you won’t have some challenges. If you are having difficulty, send your comments to dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com. Remove the no spam bit.

Next time we may cover a longer chord progression that uses the two basic chord shapes we know.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - January 1, 2008 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

You can slide this single shape to any fret. Just be sure your finger is on strings 2 through 4, no matter what fret you’re on. In this lesson, we’re going to play a chord progression that slides our single shape to different frets. Before I try to explain it in words, have a look at the video here.

A necessary note about viewing this file: you can play it with QuickTime, but not with Windows Media Player. There’s another player, which I recommend over both those two. It’s free and it takes up much less space on your hard drive: videolan.org.

After you get the VideoLan player, download and watch the aforementioned file MovingShape.mov. Then, play around with the shape: change the rhythm, use different frets, pluck a single string at a time instead of all three. Use your imagination. The important thing is NOT to be musical at this stage, but to create ideas, and to have fun doing so. By doing this, it’ll be much easier for you to build onto the foundation shape.

Let me know if you have any trouble with the lesson, including downloading or accessing the .mov file. I also want to hear about your success with this chord primer, and suggestions for improvement. Send mail here: dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com. Remove the no spam bit.

Next time, we may continue with the one finger idea, but moved to strings 1 to 3.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - December 16, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

I want to introduce you to a red hot guitarist that I met a few months ago. His name is Will Landrum. He has a couple of guitar instrumental CDs out in the vein of Vai and Satriani. “Living Digits” is his latest release and I have to tell you it totally rocks! He has distribution with iTunes and Amazon.

Not only does Will have the virtuoso guitar leads, he also has something that a lot of guitarists don’t… composition skills. Well, I discussed with him at length about his playing techniques and his approaches to creativity.

After about an hour of being totally impressed with how this guy creates such compelling guitar music, I also discovered what a great teacher he was.

So today, I want to share a video with you where Will teaches how one of the most successful rock bands in the world, uses different scale modes for creating compelling and record-selling rock music. It’s a 12 minute video where he explains how Rush uses modes in their songwriting. 

Will’s insight to using modes creatively is also at the core of his success as an instrumental guitar recording artist. Don’t miss this one.

Here’s the guitar lesson video link.

First we go over the basic structure of the song and then work on creating a cool introduction for it, which is always a good thing as a good introduction can also serve as a nice interlude between the verses.

And speaking of the verses, we also start to look at how to come up with some interesting strumming ideas, fills and bass lines for the basic verse of this song.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

To make this lesson as easy to read as it is to do, I think we’ll try to avoid tablature or other notation, and go right to pictures and sound. So let’s get to it: this is the one shape that you can start making music with almost immediately:

Place your first finger flat onto fret two, so that it’s pressing down strings 2, 3, and 4. (We number strings as follows: string 1 is closest to the ground, and 6 is closest to the ceiling.) Here’s a photo of what you need to do.

It’s okay if your finger covers more strings, but it must cover 2, 3, and 4. Now, how do we get sound? Time to look at the right hand. We’re not going to use a pick right now, but go “all natural,” or all fingers. And we’re going to pluck the strings. Again, it’s easier to see it than read it, so have a look.

Now, put the two together: press down with the first finger of your left hand on fret 2, while plucking with the fingers of your right hand. If you’re not getting sound, you may not be pressing hard enough, or your finger might be sitting atop the steel bar that separates the frets. Look for those things. If you’re still not getting sound, send an email here: dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com without the no-spam piece.

Now, what to do if you are getting sound? First, congratulations. And let’s save the goodies for next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - December 3, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

As always, I’ll be walking you through the process step by step. Hope you enjoy it!

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Think “guitar lesson blog.” Lead editor, senior columnist, and Acoustic Guitar contributor David Hodge is responsible for much of Guitar Noise’s content, which includes a wealth of song transcriptions, technical playing advice, and other tips for getting the most out of your favorite instrument.

I’m always happy to see the site’s name and the names of my friends in print. You can check out the online version of the article on Acoustic Guitar Central or shuffle on down to your local newstand and pick up the November 2008 issue of Acoustic Guitar.

• the One shape
• tuning your guitar down — incl. cautions
• songs with it (3 chord tunes: Happy birthday, Louie, Louie, etc.)
• adding one more finger
• dominant
• minor

This is a rough, rough outline subject to change. The idea here is to give you the absolute easiest shapes to begin making music with, as opposed to the standard open C, open G, and other open chords that can be tough to finger, remember, understand and see.

I invite your comments and suggestion on this approach. You can send them here: dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com. Remove the _NO_SPAM when you type out the email address. Okay, first thing is tuning.

Tuning down: optional step

You don’t have to do this step, but I highly recommend it: Tuning your guitar DOWN. One of the biggest problems beginners face is lack of finger strength. We’re going to minimize that problem by making the strings as easy to press down as possible — while still enabling us to produce sounds, obviously.

A caution in doing this: Keeping your guitar tuned like this may not be very good for your guitar over a long period of time. So, you may want to tune down per the following instructions, practice the lesson, and then tune back to regular tuning.

We’re just going to tune three strings here: 2, 3 and 4. As you hold the guitar these are the strings second, third, and fourth nearest the floor. Yes, we’re ignoring string 1 for now. Tune the guitar to the sound files on this web page.

And that’s all we have time for now. Remember to send any questions and comments to dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com without the no-spam piece.

Next time out: the Pushbutton shape. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - November 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Besides the approach we took last time to learn melodies in C major, here’s another way: an online program. This program plays melodies in C major, which you play back on a simulated keyboard. After you successfully repeat one melody, the next is harder.

Another option is to get a midi file for a simple tune with a clear melody, regardless of what key it’s in, and use the all powerful, free Power Tab (http://power-tab.net) to convert the melody to C major. Check out the Power Tab help file for more on this. Use Google.com to find the midi files.

A guitar scale

Once you feel pretty comfortable with playing melodies in C major on a piano, it’s time to play those melodies on the guitar. To do this, you’ll want to know at least one major scale pattern. The pattern we’re going to make use of in a short bit is this one:

|-----------------|-----1-3-5-3-1---|
|-----------------|-3-5-----------5-|
|-----------2-4-5-|-----------------|
|-----2-3-5-------|-----------------|
|-3-5-------------|-----------------|
|-----------------|-----------------|

|-----------------|-----------------|------|
|-3---------------|-----------------|------|
|---5-4-2---------|-----------------|------|
|---------5-3-2---|-----------------|------|
|---------------5-|-3-2-----------2-|-3----|
|-----------------|-----5-3-1-3-5---|------|

These are all eighth notes except the last, which is a whole note.

Practice this until you can play it smoothly with a metronome. You don’t need a blazingly fast tempo. Any tempo that you could walk comfortably to will be just fine. Do make sure you can play the pattern without reading the
tablature.

Once you can play this pattern, let’s figure out the Noel tune with it. First, here’s another version of the tune. It’s transposed down one octave, to fit the notes we’ve decided to work with. It’s still in C major.

Now, here is where you play the first three notes for the melody.

Begin playing the tune, note by note, on the guitar now. Using the procedure we went over in the last lesson. Here’s a summary of that procedure again:

Listen to the midi file. Sing along several times. Close the midi file, and sing the tune a cappella - just you, no backup. Use the above picture to play the first three notes. Choose the fourth note by answering this question: is the fourth note higher or lower than the third? Use your singing, and your knowledge of the major scale pattern above to find that fourth note. Then, do the same for the remaining notes in the melody.

Remember that the more text you read, the more confusing this simple, easy, joyful process may seem. So, quit reading and start playing.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - November 2, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

In the last lesson we learned how to play the familiar Noel Christmas tune by ear on the piano, and saw that it only needed eight different piano keys. We ignored the black piano keys, because the tune stays totally in C major. The white notes on the piano represent all the notes in C major.

Ideas for practice

Playing that one melody by ear feels terrific, but once you can play it smoothly you’re going to want to learn more melodies by ear. Lots more. And you’ll learn each one more quickly than the last, watching your musical ear develop.

If you want to continue using the simulated piano to learn simple melodies by ear, which I strongly encourage you to do before picking up the guitar, you’ll want to keep on working with tunes in C major, at least at first. The reason you want to stick to C major is that it lets you figure out tunes using just the white keys on the piano.

So the question is, where do you find more melodies in C major? Here are a couple of strategies to answer that:

Finding C major melodies

Ask a buddy or someone else who can play by ear, or at least has been studying music for a little while, to transpose a tune for you. Tell your buddy the name of the melody you want to learn, or give him a sound file with the melody. Then, offer to bake him those blue brownies he likes so much in exchange for his transposing the melody to C major for you, and playing it. When your buddy plays, record him. Then, it’s time for you to listen to this melody, which is now in C major, and then play it by ear. Once you have your piano available, go through the same procedure we covered last lesson to play by ear: listen to the recording, sing, and pick out the melody on the piano’s white keys.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - October 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Our nineteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, just up online a few days now, gives us an introduction to some very important strumming techniques – anticipation, dynamics, and (believe it or not) using rests as part of a strumming pattern.

We begin with an explanation of anticipation and how using it easily fits in with all that we’ve learned about strumming so far. Then we add rests and dynamics to a basic pattern to make it sound a lot less generic and a lot more like “real music.”

Finally, we follow a very simple exercise of emphasizing the upstrokes when we play to make our use of anticipation more natural and, hopefully, get you through all the problem points.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Last time out we talked about the helpfulness of learning at least on major scale pattern when you learn melodies by ear. Now let’s talk a bit about major scale patterns in reference to the instrument that’s best suited to learning to play by ear: piano.

When you play a tune by ear on the piano, and that tune is in C major without drifting off into other keys, you don’t need to learn any patterns: all you have to do is hit the white keys. If this isn’t the best-kept secret in making music, I don’t know what is. And I sure wish that all guitar teachers would take students who’ve never made music before, and show them how to pick out a melody on a simple keyboard first, before they even lay a finger on the frets or even think the word “theory,” or even crack open a music book.

I want to prove to you how easy it is to play a tune by ear on piano. We’re now going to play a simple Christmas melody, which I’ve arranged to stay within one octave, and within C major. That means you only have to work with seven different notes. These notes occur only on the piano’s white keys, and that means you can ignore the black keys. (To be totally honest, we’ll be using a total of eight white keys: the note C occurs in two different octaves in this melody.)

Here’s the melody.

Obviously, we’re going to need a piano to do this exercise. Don’t worry: if you don’t have a synthesizer, organ, or piano, you can use a simulated piano. There’s one online here.

Once you have the piano in front of you, it’s time to play by ear. Start by listening to the song several times, and singing along with it.

Now that you’ve listened to the tune a couple of times, let’s begin finding its notes on the piano. Remember we only have to play with the white keys, and there are only eight different white keys we’ll make use of. In fact, I’ll show you the specific piano key for the first note of the melody. Here’s an illustration that shows you the starting note.

Now that you have the first note, find the next one. How to do it? Sing the melody again to yourself. Sing slowly. Ask, “is this next note higher or lower than the previous note?” If it’s higher, you’ll try out a white piano key that’s somewhere to the right of the last note you played. If the note sounds lower, that key will be located somewhere to the left of the last note you played. The more text you read about how to do this, the more confusing this truly simple process will seem. If I were sitting next to you showing you how to do this, you’d get it in a second. As Gloria Estefan once observed in that beautiful tune, “The words get in the way.”

So, I’m going to shut up, and let you figure out the tune. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - October 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Today, we’ll wrap up our work with the traditional song, “Streets of Laredo,” one that some of you may recognize from Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings IV.” We’ll pick up where we left off and then take a little side journey into modulations, which are basically temporary shifts of key, In this particular song, this means using a D major scale to create a walking bass line even though we’re in the key of G.

We’ll also take a quick look at using a “walking chord pattern” in place of a walking bass line. We’ve seen this specific pattern before in our Guitar Noise song lessons on Imagine and Babylon, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to pick up on. And it sounds terrific.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

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Almost rule number next: sing. After you listen, and believe you have the melody in your head, sing. You don’t need any instructions to do this: you’ve probably been singing all your life. But what you may not realize is that singing reinforces the music in your head. If all you did was listen, the first time you tried to sing your notes would not match the notes you heard. In other words, your intonation would probably be poor compared to the more precise notes you get when you sing more frequently.

When you’re learning a tune by ear, sing the melody again and again. Isolate parts of the melody you’re not sure of, and repeat those several times. It may also help if you close your eyes when you sing, so whatever your eyes are seeing doesn’t distract your mind from the sounds you’re creating.

Think of how babies learn to speak: they babble to themselves, besides doing other things. That babbling helps them reinforce the sounds they heard mommy and daddy teaching them. If the baby never babbled, and instead tried to learn the language just by thinking about speaking, he wouldn’t get very far.

So, whether you feel certain that you know a melody or not, sing it.

A major scale pattern

Another skill you’ll want to have and almost ought to have: playing at least one major scale pattern.

You don’t absolutely need to know a major scale pattern to play by ear, but it’s a big help. Learning (at least one) major scale pattern is kind of like the employees at a food store organizing the food: you know, you can find the canned peaches together with the canned pineapple chunks in one aisle, and the eggs are in a separate aisle with the cheese.

If the employees at the food store suddenly stopped organizing the food this way, and started putting one carton of eggs with the pasta and another carton of eggs at the other end of the store, you, the food buyer, would have a tough time buying your food. You could find all the food you need, but it would take much longer and you’d get pretty impatient and upset also.

That’s why we have major scale patterns for music: to keep our fingers from having to “think” every time our inner ears told them to play a note. When you organize the major scale into a pattern on the fretboard, your fingers can automatically go to the right note.

We continue learning to play guitar by ear next time. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Almost rules

Let’s talk about some skills that are almost required to play by ear, but that you can easily build. I call these skills “almost required” These skills will massively help you play by ear.

One of those almost required skills will probably seem obvious to you, but we need to mention it: listening. You have to listen, with concentrated effort, when you’re learning to play by ear. That means putting on headphones, tuning out all distractions, and imagining yourself crawling inside or surfing on top of the sounds coming from your CD player or computer. Spend time listening without singing. Singing is also important, but listen first, then sing. By doing this, you devote your full attention to the impressions the notes are making on you.

In a sense, you’re listening with your feelings. Music is the kind of thing that directly affects your psyche; it can immediately trigger emotions within you. So, when you listen with concentration to a piece of music, you’re actually listening to your emotional responses to it.

We don’t need to go overboard with this. For instance, when you hear Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen fire off a billion notes in 1 microsecond, you’re not going to be able to identify the emotions that each note - or actually note change - has on you. But, with some training, you will be able to identify the overall feeling that you get from listening to such a dense concentration of notes.

We’ll continue with “almost-rules” next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Let’s get right on with our work with the traditional song, ”Streets of Laredo,” one that some of you may recognize from Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings IV.” In this Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll look at creating walking bass lines from D to G chords. We’ll also start to tackle the “chorus” section of this song.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

What’s wrong with the guitar? Understand that it’s designed to be a portable music maker. When you think of something that is portable, that thing is probably more difficult to use than a stationary version that achieves the same thing. Laptops are harder to use than desktop PCs, cell phones are harder to use than regular phones, and “portable” homes like Winnebagos are generally not as comfortable as stationary homes.

Don’t get me wrong. If you try to replace my guitar by moving a baby grand into my living room, with Norah Jones to give me lessons, I will hurt you the second you put your hands on my frets. And I’m against violence and would hate to see Ms. Jones leave. But think about it: when you look at the guitar as you’re playing it, you can’t even see the notes you’re playing because you’re not viewing the fretboard head on, but at an angle. That would be like a painter trying to paint by turning his easel so he was looking along its edge instead of its face.

Everything you learn about playing by ear from spending just a bit of time at the piano will be info you can translate to playing the guitar. In fact, I can almost guarantee you’ll have new insights in your guitar playing from learning a bit of piano playing.

If you are just learning to pick out melodies and play them on a musical instrument, and if those melodies are confined just to C major, you will begin playing melodies on the piano so quickly it will make your head spin. Do you know why? Count out the number of different notes there are in C major (or any major key), within one octave. There are only seven different notes! How far off can you possibly be when trying out a note?

Forget teachers, forget books, forget theory. Just listen to one simple tune, say, a Christmas tune that you know for a fact is in C major. Sing along with it a few times. Then, get yourself a freebie piano keyboard program for your computer — you don’t even need a real keyboard. Then, listen to the tune a few times, sing it a few times, and then get busy finding those notes on the keyboard.

Don’t worry about following these tips now, though. We’re going to expand on this brief procedure in upcoming issues of this newsletter.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - August 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

We’ll continue with our “using the stuff we’ve learned so far” by looking at “Streets of Laredo,” a traditional song that some of you may recognize from Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings IV.”

In this, our sixteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll start with a basic ”bass / strum” in 3/4 timing and then add some fancier work to both the bass and the strumming.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Before we learn a melody by ear, you’ll want to make an observation for yourself about playing by ear on the guitar. As much as I love the guitar, I realize that it is not the best instrument to begin learning to play by ear. The reason is that notes are laid out on the guitar in a way that invites confusion for the player.

Even after you pass the beginner’s stage, you might find yourself spending a lot of time figuring out where to play something on the fretboard, or asking why a chord shape doesn’t look like it logically follows another chord shape, even though it sounds terrific.

If you don’t already know how to play another instrument by ear, learning this skill with the guitar is not your best choice. Learning to play by ear on the guitar is like learning to draw like this: tape the drawing paper to your back; look at mirrors to see what you’re doing; and reach your arm uncomfortably back behind yourself to stab out a couple of hopeful strokes.

I’m not kidding: learning how music works, and how to play by ear is actually pretty easy and super fun - but not if you’re learning how to play the guitar at the same time. If you’ve already moved past the beginner’s stage, you will be able to pick out melodies on the guitar, but you might learn even quicker if you used a piano keyboard to do it - even if you’ve never even had a piano lesson. That’s how intuitive playing the piano is.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - August 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

You want to play by ear for this reason above all others: it just feels good. That’s it! That’s why you began playing in the first place, isn’t it? You play because you dig the sounds coming out of your guitar. And that’s the same feeling you’ll get, multiplied by 100 or so, when you first start picking out melodies on the guitar.

When you start figuring out chords and complete songs on the guitar, you get an even bigger rush. When you get to that point you will realize that not only was figuring out chords and tunes not that hard, it was pretty darn fun.

Besides the fun and satisfaction factor, why else would you want to play by ear?

Here’s a good, motivating reason: you’ll save money and time. The next time you hear a tune on the radio or a CD that you’d like to play yourself, instead of spending time digging around for the tab, or spending money to buy the sheet music, you’ll work the tune out for yourself. Besides saving money and time, you’ll also get your fun quota filled for the week. (See the “fun” reason just mentioned.)

Here’s another reason to learn to play by ear: jamming. If you’re getting together with a buddy to make music, you’ll have a much more satisfying time of it if you can hear what he or she is playing and respond to it, whether with chordal accompaniment or a melodic line.

Or, let’s say your jamming buddy is claiming that he’s learned the Stairway to Heaven solo note for note — from tablature. He starts playing, and because you can play by ear, you immediately hear which notes are out of whack. And you diplomatically point out those notes, and again, using your highly attuned ear, point out the right notes to play.

In short, you earn the respect of the musicians you currently play with, when you can play by ear.

Once you begin playing by ear, you’ll be creating a connection between yourself and the great musicians of the past like Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery and others who played only by ear. Wouldn’t it be satisfying to know that, by using your ears, you’re following the same path that some of the most worshiped guitarists before you have followed?

Playing by ear helps you learn new tunes quicker. You’re more able to scope out a tune you’ve never heard before, and learn how to play it and remember it much more easily than if you don’t yet know how to play by ear.

You probably have your own reasons for playing by ear. The list just given is just a sample. Writing down your reasons in a journal is a great way to intensify the feelings those reasons evoke. And doing that will get you to play by ear even more quickly. Now that we know why to play by ear, we’ll begin easing into the how to do it, and what to do with it.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - July 16, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Guitar Noise Podcast #15 takes up right on the heels of #14 - we’ll still be using “Handsome Molly” as an exercise to incorporate the various lessons we’ve picked up in our podcasts thus far. The emphasis here will be on combining measures (or half measures) of strumming with measures (or half measures) of crosspicking. Plus, we’ll add a couple of riffs to make the change from our G to D chord a little more interesting.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Just what exactly does it mean to play by ear?

When you hear someone say, “He plays by ear” it’s often said with awe, in the same way you might say, “His car has 10-wheel drive and he can parallel park it with his eyes closed while balancing a guitar pick on his nose.”

Unfortunately, when you hear such talk, you think that you, or the average person, can’t play by ear. Talk like this gets you to believe that you can’t hear a simple melody and play it on the guitar or other instrument. And if you believe this, you believe a lie, because everyone with hearing, a bit of desire and a pinch of persistence can play by ear.

To play by ear means to listen to something, and then play it on an instrument - apart from your voice. Recognize first that singing a melody you’ve heard is actually a form of playing by ear. We’re going to focus on playing guitar by ear, but singing will help you do this.

And we need to amend the above statement a bit: playing by ear does mean to translate what you hear into what you play. But, what you hear is affected by what you understand about music. You don’t have to have a music degree or even have read music theory books to build an understanding of how chords fit with melodies, what chords can substitute for each other, and other topics. But, at some level, you can acquire this understanding, just by applying your passion to play, and asking questions like “Why does this sound so cool? How can I make more of this type of sound?” And this understanding comes out when you listen to a tune or piece you want to play by ear. So, the same sound hitting your ears and a novice’s ears can sound very different, because your musical knowledge changes your hearing.

The first thing we’ll learn how to play by ear is a simple, familiar melody. Although the melody is simple, it will still be effective for building the skill of playing by ear. Lots of melodies in popular songs are simple. Some are so simple that they’re not any fun to sing without strumming some chords to accompany them.

We’ll learn more about playing by ear next time. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - July 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

First off, learn scales and play them regularly. Most important: the major scale. Learn at least the five CAGED forms. (Get Fretboard Logic is this term confuses you). But the more forms you know, the more insights you get into how melodies work - when you take the time to learn melodies on those forms.

Also, doodle, noodle, and play. Scat or sing stuff and try to play what you sing. This is easier when you know a melody well.

Make transcribing melodies a habit. Listen, sing, then fret away.

Last tip for this issue: make a game of finding a melody note over the chords you strum to a song. This is a great way of learning how melodies work with chords.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - May 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

For our fourteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, let’s take stock of the many things we’ve learned so far and, over the course of the next number of GN Podcasts, put them to use in song. After all, that’s why we’re practicing, right? For starters, we’ll use the traditional tune, “Handsome Molly” (also known to many as “I Wish I Was in London”), which has a nice, simple chord progression of G, D and C.

We explored the idea of SAMES and DIFFERENTS last time. Why are those in capital letters? Isn’t there enough shouting in the world without me shouting at you? The reason for the capitals is to stress the idea. SAMES are things that get repeated in a melody, and you can figure out what DIFFERENTS are based on that.

But melodies in solos, in songs old and new and from every country, use lots of SAMES. They repeat notes. And it’s not because the composer is lazy. It’s because we listeners like lots of SAMEs. Just like we usually don’t prefer waking up in a different house every morning, but want to keep to the SAME home day after day. Same goes for jobs and so many other areas of life.

And the same is true of great art. And movies. Why are there so many super hero movies made? Because we want to see the SAME basic ideas of miraculous powers and happy endings over and over, despite there being different characters involved.

Back to melodies. Just where do we search for SAMES in melodies? Here’s a key observation that will hold true for much of the music you here: many parts of music are organized in units of four and two. Four quarter notes to a measure, for example. If you can get some standard notation of one of your favorite melodies, mark off every four bars to start with. If the notation is busted up with one staff having three bars and the next having five, rewrite or cut and paste so you’re looking at rows of four bars each. Then, even if you can’t read the notation, you can still effectively compare the notes, because standard notation is actually pretty intuitive and visual.

As you look from bar 1 to bar 4, then bar 2 and bar 5, ask yourself “what notes are the same here?” Or, what entire groups of notes are the same? Maybe notes are not duplicated exactly, but the overall *shape* of the line is copied.

We’ll explore melodies more next time. Have fun seeing the SAMES in your favorite melodies. And thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - May 2, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

In the two years that the guitar has been in discussion, a number of prototypes have been produced, and the final version was only approved when David was happy that all elements combined to make a sound that was as close as possible to his own guitar’s. The ‘Black Strat’ comes in a hard case (by G&G) stuffed with extras: Phil Taylor’s ‘Black Strat’ book, a set of GHS David Gilmour Boomer strings, a copy of the 3-disc version of Live In Gdańsk, a cable by Evidence Audio, a deluxe Fender leather strap, and a David Gilmour plectrum. The interior of the case is a plush green, including embroidered David Gilmour and Fender Custom Shop logos.

That definitely sounds like something I’d like to see under my Christmas tree this year. Is it even worth dropping hints?

In our thirteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, we move into the realm of swing. First, we’ll look at the feel of swing and of how “swing eighths” differ from the “straight eighth” notes that we’ve been using in our strumming up to this point.

And, since swing eighths are the basis of blues shuffles and rhythms, we’ll use our new strumming style in the “twelve bar blues” format as a way to get ourselves comfortable with the use of swing eighths in strumming. Then, as we have in past lessons, we’ll explore this rhythm further by combining it with a very cool walking bass line. You’ll be sounding like a Texas blue legend before you’re done!

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

What does “modeling a melody” mean? It means “doing what a particular melody does without duplicating the melody.” So we explore a melody, find out why it goes where it goes, and say “how can I do that?” Or, “how can I make more of that stuff? It sounds good.”

Let’s have some steps here, a process.

• Listen to the melody, first of all. Kind of obvious.

What are we listening for? Key idea coming up:

• List the SAMES you hear
• List the DIFFERENTS you hear

Great melodies often use a lot of repetition. For example, what happens in one measure might have been almost exactly what happened in the previous measure, with a few different notes at the end.

• Next step: List Cool Sounds. Especially Cool Sounds that are cool for reasons we don’t yet understand
• Next: Notate (transcribe) the melody. We could write volumes on this. But…not now. Get the melody on paper or your computer. Get a visual representation - in standard notation, not tablature. What’s wrong with tab? Tab does not show (consistently) difference in pitch as immediately as standard notation.
• Print out the melody and repeat above: List the SAMES and DIFFERENTS.

Try the steps just mentioned with a favorite melody, and see if you don’t come up with some insights into how that melody works to sound good. We’ll do more steps to modeling a melody next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - April 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

We’re going to try something a little different with our twelfth Guitar Noise Podcast. I’m not even sure it’s got a “technical” name!

Basically, and for lack of a better way of putting it, we’ll be “stretching out” our downstrum - turning it from a typcial downstroke to something that’s more of a musical punctuation mark. It’s easy to do and allows us to vary a typical strumming pattern in an interesting way while practically changing nothing in what we’re doing.

As before, we’ll examine this technique and then combine it with different patterns as well as with other techniques learned from our previous Guitar Noise Podcasts.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

I’ve been playing guitar off and on for several years, but I feel stuck; I keep playing the same chords to the same songs every time I play.

If you were me and could play only a few chords, what would you choose to learn? Riffs? Scales? Any guidance is appreciated.

[Following is my response.]

Thanks for your message. I understand the problem you’re going through. You’re bored with your playing. You’re looking for something fresh. There are lots of ways of finding this.

One thing to keep in mind is this: if you try to tackle something that has little meaning for you, all your effort will be for nothing. So, follow what you like most about playing.

Another idea: consider getting a book on beginning chord melody playing. This type of playing doesn’t require that you be the world’s greatest guitarist. In other words, with a little bit of input you get a lot of output.

Chord melody arrangements give you the complete song: chords plus melody. You said you were bored just playing chords. Chord melody shows you how the chords go along with the melody. It’s very satisfying for the hands and for the ears. And if anyone besides you happens to be listening, it’s satisfying for them, too.

Search on Google or the Hal Leonard sites for “Chord Melody.” Also, Volume 1 of William Leavitt’s Modern Method for Guitar has some very sweet chord melody etudes. And they’re short.

Chord melody arrangements are just one way of beating boredom. I think you also might like to learn some fingerpicking arrangements. Fingerpicking makes the guitar sound like several guitars. Lots of fun. Get a book showing you how Paul Simon played back in his Simon and Garfunkel days.

You might find learning licks fun, but in my experience they don’t satisfy for very long. Because they’re just part of a tune, not the whole thing.

Above all, learn songs: chords, melody. All parts. You mentioned that you are reading the play by ear series on Maximum Musician. If you enjoy this, you can expand on this reading by committing to learning a melody by ear every day. Learn a melody in all the major scale forms that you know. If you don’t play scales yet, don’t spend tons of time learning all the forms at once. Just learn a few strings of one form at a time, and then use what you’ve learned by playing simple melodies on it. Again, Leavitt’s Modern Method is good for this.

These are just a few ideas, R. Keep asking questions, and the answers will come, and your feet will get out of the mud.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - April 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Let’s continue with examination of percussive rhythmic strumming techniques and move from palm muting to string muting. Just as with our last GN Podcast, our eleventh one will take us from the basic elements of string muting and then work on integrating this new technique into the strumming patterns and techniques we’ve covered thus far.

For the most part, we’ll be focusing on the G chord, throwing in a short G to C to D progression as we gain more confidence in our string muting abilities.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Darrin: I can plan out solos just fine but when it comes to improvising I am totally in the dark. What can I do about this?

Sincerely,
D

Hi, D. Thanks for your message. This is a common problem. And it’s great that you can write or plan your solos — which is already something a lot of guitarists have no clue about, but have a great desire to do.

Improvising involves a different but related set of mental muscles from writing out solos. Improvising relies on memory of the right notes to hit, ingrained over thousands of repetitions of practice. But besides playing scales and patterns, writing out solos is excellent preparation for improvising. It gets you thinking of melody, which is what an improvising soloist thinks about.

There are lots of approaches to improvising. Many share some common elements: playing with scales that relate totally or closely to chords. William Leavitt’s Volume III of Modern Method for Guitar has info on scales that relate to chords. Not always easy to digest, but with practice it hits the target.

The basic idea is to play a scale that runs through the chord that’s playing. Simple example: C major scale over a C major chord.

Much of what you’re going to read about chord scale theory is just fine for playing the correct harmony over a chord. But rhythm can really be the key for you. If all you can find is three good notes to solo with, you might sound great if you lay those notes out in rhythmically cool ways. That’s why scatting or singing a rhythm — with no concern for pitch — is a great way to build improv chops.

So, summing it up: study “chord scale” theory. Check out Leavitt, and this is also highly recommended: Laporta’s Guide to Improvisation, published by Berklee. He’ll get you to work out the rhythm thing.

Another resource just jumped into my head, with regard to composing solos: John Abercrombie. Definitely a force in guitar improvisation and teaching the same. I believe he has at least a DVD available.

Above all, stay with it and play something over chord changes. Even if you think you suck, at least your ear is sensitive enough to make that determination. And with desire, growing understanding and practice, of course, you will cease to suck.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - March 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Let’s go over some comments about this 7-note pattern. First, describing it without notation, it goes like this:

Play 4 notes of an ascending major scale(*). Descend two notes, then ascend again for one note.

Here’s an excerpt of the tab from the last issue:

|---- --------------|
||o-----------------|
||------------------|
||------------------|
||o-------4-------4-|
||--5-6-8---8-6-8---|

(*) (This is actually a major scale with an extra note played a half-step above the 5: It’s called a Bebop Major scale. So, in F major, the notes include …C, C#, D…This scale is used in a variety of musical genres, not just jazz.)

We could have used a regular major scale on this. But the Bebop scale has a nice way of making the right notes – chord tones – sound in the right places. We may go into that another time.

Without over analyzing the 7-note pattern too much, we’ll just say it’s worth learning at least a few bars of. Doing so will perk your ear up to the possibilities hidden in scale playing.

A tip in learning the pattern: Learning the first seven notes is not too tough. It’s the second set of second seven that gets tricky. But it doesn’t have to be. Try this: Play the pattern starting on any degree in the scale, and start it so the first note is on an up beat. Do that for several runs to get the second set of seven familiar to your fingers and ears.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - March 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.